The Sign
by Ginny-Rose95
Summary: Tank leaves a sign on Ranger's house advertising a need for a woman. Ranger just about tears it down when a strangely fresh face comes to his porch to inquire.


So I wrote this story as an assignment for my creative writing class where the prompt was to write a short story about a sign in the front of someone's house saying "Wife wanted - Inquire Within" and decided to post it in honor of Valentine's day. I tweaked the time line of the series a little bit so Ranger and Stephanie haven't met yet, this is my first Stephanie Plum Fanfiction so I hope you like it.

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><p>Soft footsteps broke through his solitude, the sharp clap of a heel against stone alerting him of a visitor. Quickly he checked the back door, dubiously looking for an exit. He dreaded opening the door to yet another woman, fearing that he might shoot the next one who threw herself at him. The damn sign had been up for a week now, a "gift" from his long time friend and associate who thought it would help him find a woman. He didn't want one, not after his ex-wife, unless it involved a bit of casual sex on both sides of the partnership. He had thought the sign would simply be ignored and so he had simply watched as his friend dug a hole in his yard and filled it with wet concrete and sticking the stupid post in.<p>

He had grossly underestimated the sheer amount of desperate, older Trenton women wishing for a man of their own and had recently taken to dead-bolting his door and discretely moving his things to his other apartment on the other side of the sprawling city.

A soft knock and an even gentler, meek "hello" that he had never before heard in a Trenton woman chimed through his house. He checked the door again and cursed non-too quietly when he saw two eyes looking through the paneled glass at the top of his door. The women could clearly see him and he had no alternative but to answer the door. Deciding that he would do the quick and easy approach and "rip the bandage off", he approached the door.

He opened the door, about to tell whatever sad, dismally dressed women with over-done makeup in front of him that the damn sign was a cheap joke from an ass of a friend, when the words caught in his throat. The woman was about his age, late twenties to early thirties, with a mass of wild brown curls that cut off at her shoulders, and startling, clear blue eyes. She was dressed in comfortablely worn looking, very nearly sinfully tight blue jeans, Doc Martin shoes, and a green plaid button shirt over a tight white t-shirt that had him struggling slightly to keep his eyes on her face than down below.

"Hello, I came about the sign?" she wasn't looking at him, instead at her feet, her arms held behind her back. He felt the heat pool to his dark cheeks and schooled his features into a carefully calm expression. He opened his mouth to explain when she pulled her hands to the front and revealed a crumbled mass of what might have once been metal. She was red-faced and her cheeks only darkened when she looked up at him. She opened her mouth to talk; shaking her head momentarily to clear what he hoped was equally dirty thoughts as his.

"I-uh- had an accident with my car and your sign was the causality." She pointed, her cheeks and adorably pink flush, to a mass of what might have been a larger scale of what she held in her hands but smoking. He wanted to laugh but the girl seemed truly frightened of him.

"That's okay," the girl looked up at his voice and then blushed red and looked down, he shifted his weight slightly, waiting for her to speak.

"Oh wait!" she suddenly yelled, as if he had been about to close the door on her, he wondered vaguely if it happened to her a lot. She reached into her purse and started pushing things around. Stun gun, handcuffs, pepper spray, gun; the last made him pause, she didn't seem the type of girl to carry concealed, nor did she seem to have the coordination for the police department to have issued a permit for it. She pulled out a card and slipped everything back in. "It's my card!" she told him, pushing the small white paper into his hand. He nearly jolted when he felt her soft, warm skin against his rougher palm.

His eyes scanned the paper and he very nearly choked when he read her job description. A bounty hunter, this tiny little thing in front of him? And for Vinnie's bail bond agency, the same one as him? She explained to him that it had her information if he wanted compensation for the sign or anything.

"That'll be okay, "he told her smoothly, sliding the card into the back of his black jeans. "Do you need a ride to the office?" he offered, sliding the keys from the hook beside the door into his hand. Her eyes widened as if she had never been offered such a generous thing before. She immediately started protesting but he ignored her words, registering in his mind that she had a pleasant sort of voice, even with the Jersey-Trenton accent. He locked the door behind him and silently walked to his car, noticing with a barely there smile that she was still following him despite her protests.

"You don't even know where it is!" she shouted, arms thrown up, as he opened the passenger door for her. This time he really did grin.

"Oh yes I do babe, I work there," her mouth dropped open, and she stood speechless. With a gentle push she was into the car and he swiftly walked to the other side. "And I have to get some folder for a new skip anyway," he told her.

"W-Who?" he chuckled lowly at his companion's suddenly speechless manner.

"Ranger." He told her simply, she didn't need to know his full name and odds were, if she had spoken to Connie, she already knew. Her eyes bugged.

"_The _Ranger?" she asked and he smirked.

"The very one." He replied simply, secretly loving the almost covetous look she gave him. He inwardly reminded himself to thank Tank for the stupid sign. He could see himself marrying this possibly crazy, definitely gorgeous woman sitting beside him. Especially when she adamantly denied his offer to take her to the police station citing her response as 'they'd get too good of a laugh from it, it's the second time'. He decided then as she cited all the other mishaps that 'weren't her fault', that she'd either kill him from insanity, or he'd marry her within the year.

The very next February, a year after they met, Ricardo Carlos Manoso and Stephanie Plum married in a crisp winter morning to a laughing crowd. Ranger was so happy he even managed to ignore the new sign Tank had put up, telling his babe he would take it down the next day. Although he might not, after all the 'Wife no longer needed, thank you' summed up his current moment pretty accurately. He even managed to ignore the boys who made the jokes on him marrying on Valentine's Day.


End file.
